Yoder Smokers Community Forum

I have had a Yoder Kingman for about 3 months and love it. I have done several prime briskets and they have turned out great. However, they have all had a pretty hard crust on the bottom and I'm not sure why. I cook them fat side up and generally maintain the cooking chamber temp at 250F. I wrap them in butcher paper at about 6 or 7 hours and pull them off to rest when they feel done and internal temp is 205 or so.
Any help would be appreciated.

All Yoder cookers cook from the bottom up, not the top down, so the fat cap should be down.

You say all cookers, I assume that means pellets as well?

Yes.

huh... this goes against normal thinking. When I cook Brisket or pork shoulder for that matter, I always have the fat on top. that way as the meat cooks, the fat will melt into the meat.... if you cook with the fat on the bottom will your meat not be drier? what if you start the brisket on the cooking rack....say for a hour or two, get that great color and flavor. then move the Brisket to a half sheet with a wire rack to allow air flow.. this will protect the bottom of the brisket from over cooking. the fat layer is there to provide flavor and to keep the meat moist..... I would never cook with the fat side down..... just my opinion

JeffinKS wrote:huh... this goes against normal thinking. When I cook Brisket or pork shoulder for that matter, I always have the fat on top. that way as the meat cooks, the fat will melt into the meat.... if you cook with the fat on the bottom will your meat not be drier? what if you start the brisket on the cooking rack....say for a hour or two, get that great color and flavor. then move the Brisket to a half sheet with a wire rack to allow air flow.. this will protect the bottom of the brisket from over cooking. the fat layer is there to provide flavor and to keep the meat moist..... I would never cook with the fat side down..... just my opinion

The only reason to leave the fat cap on any meat, is to protect the actual meat from inconsistent or too much high heat. Normally the fat cap is positioned toward the heat source, and as explained, all Yoder cookers cook from the bottom up, not the top down like most other cookers. So for anyone adhering to the fat cap toward the heat theory, it needs to be down in a Yoder cooker.

Now the science, excerpted from a full article on the Amazing Ribs website:

The fat cap is usually white, fairly hard, and can be as much as two inches thick. Meat scientist, Dr. Tony Mata, the Amazing Ribs beef consultant, explains, "Fat will not migrate into the muscle as it is cooked. First of all, the molecules are too large to squeeze in. Second, fat is mostly oil. The red stuff in meat is muscle and it is mostly water. Oil and water don't mix. Protein in muscle is also immiscible in fat because of its chemical configuration. Third, in most cases there is an anatomical barrier between muscle and fat cap, namely, a layer of connective tissue holding muscle groups together. It too is water based."

The Amazing Ribs science advisor Dr. Greg Blonder adds a fourth reason: "Raw meat is like a protein sponge. Before it is cooked it is fully saturated with water. There's no room for the fat to go in. As the meat cooks, water-based juices are being expelled from the interior. No way fat can swim upstream."

So as you can see, the actual science of cooking disproves the idea of fat moisturizing the meat while cooking.

I trim my full packer briskets to 1/8" to 1/4," leaving the point on, always... I cook fat side up, always. Not saying I'm right and not a zealot for my approach--just sharing what works for me. I like to have a little bit of fat on my flat when I slice it up and I like the bark/crust and all the smoke flavor to be something that we all eat. Heck, I just spent 12+/- hours cooking the darned thing, it kills me to just peel off a big fat cap that's too thick for anyone to want to eat and waste all the precious flavor I spent so long to create. I trim it low enough that, even after cooking and rendering a bunch of fat off, the rub, smoke and fat all turn into something mystical and magical... I've found, again for me, that fat side up gives me a better, more tasty bark/crust. There's enough intramuscular fat on every full packer I've ever seen that I'm not worried about the fat cap functioning as a moisturizer/tenderizer, and Herb's post from Amazing Ribs just confirms that it wouldn't work anyway.

Back to your question, the only time I've ever had a crusting issue on the bottom of a brisket in my 640--ever--is when my set temp is north of 250. I know that there are some very well known chefs, pitmasters and restauranteurs who are cooking at 275F and above (and there are just as many who are cooking at 180-220....and everything in between....) My [gratuitous] advice is to just experiment w/ your own cooker/smoker at different temps until you get it the way YOU like it and don't worry about what everyone else does that works for THEM. I just smoked 4 full packers last night at 220 and they came out perfectly. I've experimented with every temp range from 180 to 275 on my 640 and I find, for me and what I like, and depending on my available time, 220 to 240 is the range I prefer on a 640. If I was using a stickburner, I think I'd be running a slightly higher temp but I don't currently have one so can't say for sure...

Keep cooking and vary the temps a bit and you'll definitely find your sweet spot. Nothing better once you do! Good luck. No matter what, spending a day (or night) working on a smoker is a heck of a lot more fun than most other things I can think of, even if the experiments aren't the best darned thing you ever ate every time or not. You'll get close enough most times, it just doesn't matter...

If your witchita has a plate system and you are cooking hot you need to put the fat cap down. The plates even out the heat but at higher temps will radiate more heat as well.